As part of KOGO in the Community, we take a look at the long history of film makiing in San Diego.
People assume most films are shot in Los Angeles; often times it’s places like New Mexico or Georgia, for various tax reasons.
About 100 miles south of Los Angeles, many movies have been made.
In a few months it will be the 11th year the SAN DIEGO FILM AWARDS, which awards films made in San Diego. Last year, local filmmaker Rich Varville’s “Death is a Rose Bush” won a few awards (and of the hundreds of movies I reviewed all year, it was one of the best). This year I’m excited to be handing out three awards at the San Diego Film Awards.
The SAN DIEGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL has been going strong for almost 25 years.
And San Diego has a surprisingly rich history of films that have been shot here. The first big one was SOME LIKE IT HOT in 1959, filmed at the Hotel Del Coronado. It was directed by my favorite director of all time – Billy Wilder, and starred Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and the biggest pin-up ever – Marilyn Monroe.
The second biggest film to be shot here was TOP GUN. As a junior at Mira Mesa High School, I’d often play basketball with the pilots at the Miramar base and they’d tell me stories about Tom Cruise flying in a jet with them. They did barrel rolls until he barfed (they said he insisted on cleaning it up). And we still have the famous house (now in Oceanside), and the “Kansas City Barbecue” joint where some scenes were shot (it burned down a few years ago).
The biggest comedy filmed here was ANCHORMAN. It came out about 20 years ago, and people still quote Ron Burgundy’s (Will Ferrell) lines like they saw it yesterday.
The biggest horror movie was PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, which was all shot at a house in Rancho Penasquitos.
The movie with the most Oscar nominations (6) was BABEL. I was a bit disappointed by this Brad Pitt picture.
The movie with the second-most Oscar nominations (5) came out almost 25 years ago – was TRAFFIC. It was done by one of my favorite contemporary directors (Steven Soderbergh), and had a star-studded cast: Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Quaid, Viola Davis, Albert Finney, and Catherine Zeta-Jones to name a few. I’m one of the few critics that didn’t buy most of what the characters were doing.
The campiest movie made in San Diego is easily ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES.
The one film I saw being shot here was DEMOLITION MAN (Sylvester Stallone). I watched at around midnight as they filmed the scene on Miramar Road with a muscle car being driven through the pyramid building. After two hours, my friends and I got bored as they just kept replacing the windows and doors, and shooting it again (and it was a stuntman driving, not Rocky). All those hours spent for a mere 30 second scene in the film. It was the first movie I ever saw Sandra Bullock in. And speaking of first times seeing future A-list actresses…SCARFACE (Al Pacino) was the first film I ever saw Michelle Pfeiffer in. They shot a scene on Coronado Beach.
Here’s a list of other movies shot in America’s Finest City.
– SIDEWAYS. Although the two guys go up north to wine country, it starts in San Diego, where Paul Giamatti’s character lives.
– MY BLUE HEAVEN. This was written by Nora Ephron, but wasn’t one of her big hits. It was loosely based on the life of mobster Henry Hill, who went into witness protection (strangely played here by Steve Martin). A month later a bigger Hill picture would be released – Goodfellas.
– K-9. This weak Jim Belushi movie excited me for one reason. A friend from high school was bragging about his parents' dogs being used in the movie. We didn’t believe him, until we saw it. His name was the last in the credits, listed as “dog wrangler.”
– THE ENDLESS. I had the honor of introducing the cast and doing a Q&A with them at the Angelika Film Center. An amazing, sci-fi/cult movie that will blow your mind.
– THE ARRIVAL was a bigger sci-fi movie, from 30 years ago. This was before Charlie Sheen was on “Two and a Half Men” and drinking tiger blood and “winning.”
– PAUL. And on the subject of alien movies, the best one (and a film I think is a lot funnier than Anchorman) has Seth Rogen playing an alien that’s always getting stoned, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg who do brilliant comedies (and having Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, and Jason Bateman are great comedic foils, too). It starts with the two main characters nerding out at Comic Con.
– THE SAMUEL PROJECT. When this powerful movie dealing with a Holocaust survivor (Hal Linden), played at the San Diego International Film Festival, I interviewed the cast. I was surprised that all the teen girls were going nuts over the teenager in it – Ryan Ochoa (he was on a Disney show and on Nickelodeon’s “iCarly”). He was born and raised in San Diego.
– ALMOST FAMOUS. Cameron Crowe also grew up in San Diego, and got big after writing FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, based on his experience at Clairemont High School. Almost Famous was his semi-autobiographical story writing for Rolling Stone while just a teenager.
– A FEW GOOD MEN. This shouldn’t really be on the list. When I interviewed a few cast members of the film, one of them (Wolfgang Bodison), told me the first day of filming was on Camp Pendleton but when the brass read the script, and thought it showed the Marines in a bad light, they were forced to shoot elsewhere.
– THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER. Another military movie (Sean Connery after James Bond, Alec Baldwin before shooting someone). Scenes that were supposed to be in Maryland, were filmed in Point Loma at a submarine base. Some local submariners from the USS La Jolla were used as extras.
– BRING IT ON, one of the great teen comedies (Kirsten Dunst) was filmed all over San Diego. Some scenes at SDSU and local high schools, as well as the Junior Seau Pier Amphitheatre. They also used local high school cheer squads as extras.
– THE STUNT MAN. This Peter O’Toole film was also shot at the Hotel Del. My favorite thing about it was finding out in the great documentary “Escape” that star Barbara Hershey’s boyfriend Hampton Fancher (who had an insane life) was bored in the hotel, so he sat there for a few days writing “Blade Runner” – which is arguably one of the best sci-fi movies ever made.
– FREAKY FRIDAY. No, not the Lindsey Lohan version but the Disney film from the ‘70s. Many scenes were shot in Mission Bay. That same year, parts of …
– MIDWAY were also shot around town. That incredible cast included Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Pat Moria (aka Mr. Miyagi), and a young Tom Selleck.
And last…and in my opinion, least…the bizarrely titled film:
– MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE. I was so looking forward to this movie. It’s by the bizarre director Werner Herzog, and he shot it all around San Diego, mostly in the Balboa Park area. The cast included Willem Dafoe, Michael Shannon, Chloe Sevigny, and Michael Pena. This movie has even more of a San Diego connection: it was loosely based on Mark Yavorsky, an actor at the University of San Diego who was reenacting a scene from “Orestes” by murdering his mom with an antique saber.
Yikes.